Travel News Round Up – March

April 2, 2014

March has been and gone and it’s time to take a look back at what’s been buzzing in the travel industry so far this spring. What with more preparations for the World Cup getting underway in Brazil, Sotheby’s auction of a significant haul of travel books and a surprise message in a bottle for one Bahamas-based couple, it’s been a busy month! Read on to find out more…

Seat Boost for Brazil

A pair of South American airlines have added over a 1000 new flights to meet growing demand for those hoping to travel to this summer’s Football World Cup in Brazil. Airlines LAN and TAM have launched over 300 additional international flights, many of them departing from the UK, plus over 7,000 internal flights to help passengers travel around the continent in preparation for the tournament which kicks off in June.

This news follows the recent announcement by Brazilian Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo that no-fly zones set up over the games’ 12 stadiums for security reasons will mean that hundreds of flights will need to be re-routed. Rebelo also predicted that the price of flights and hotel rooms would now start to fall with room occupancy rates currently at around 90%. Some 600,000 fans are expected to travel to the samba nation, so there’s still time to get your maracas shaking.

Travel Tomes Auction

The world’s biggest collection of books about travel and discovery is going under the hammer. Sotheby’s are auctioning off the collection of 15,000 items which include Australia’s oldest printed map and the first book printed on the Antarctic, along with thousands of titles documenting the travels of Captain Cook, Drake, Shackleton, Raleigh and many other legendary explorers. The collection, estimated to be worth over £5m, was amassed by collector Franklin Brooke Hitching over a 40 year period and will be sold off in a series of auctions from now until late 2015. Plenty of time to bag some travel bragging rights for your book shelf!

Glad Tidings

A school student from New York got a nice surprise when his message in a bottle managed to wash up on a private beach in the Bahamas some three years later. Connor Corbett Rice cast his ship from the shores of Shelter Island, New York, in 2011 for a school project designed to teach students about ocean currents, under the tutelage of teacher Jack Reardon.

Reardon was gobsmacked to hear that the message had travelled so far, believing that such an occurrence was virtually impossible due to the nature of ocean currents. Rhode Island was the farthest any of his classes’ ships had reached in 9 years of running the science experiment.

The vessel was discovered by residents Andrew and Carol Gracie who found it while strolling on a deserted stretch of beach and soon fired off an email reply to the student and teacher. Many beaches in the Bahamas are known for their collections of sea glass, including the beach where the film Jaws was set.

Get started with Finnish

Have you ever felt the need to channel your inner Finn? Well now you can, thanks to a clever new campaign from Visit Finland. Their Finngenerator website helps you find out your Finnish name, simply by inputting your real name and gender.

If you’re wondering just where the names come from, many originate from the epic 19th literary work Kalevala and all of them summon up images of nature and the great outdoors, reflecting the country’s big draws, as well as a long tradition of Finnish mythology.

Have you ever sent a message in a bottle? How much are you prepared to pay for an illustrious travel book? Let us know your opinions on this month’s stories in the comments below!

Images: Brazil by Mike Vondran, used under Creative Comms licence. Engraving from an 1815 edition of Cook’s ‘Voyages’ is from the public domain.

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About the Author

Sam Natoli is a keen travel blogger, based in London but originally from South Africa. He blogs for Holiday Hypermarket about travelling in out-of-the-way places, including the Gambia, the Med and anywhere else that catches his eye.